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  NEXT OF KIN

  A Code Zero novel

  Book Three

  T.L. DYER

  Copyright © 2021 by T.L. Dyer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means without prior written permission, except for the use of quotations in a book review.

  Published by Edge of the Roof Press, an imprint of T.L. Dyer

  For enquiries visit: www.TLDyer.com

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  The human heart does not stay away too long from that which hurt it most.

  —Lillian Smith

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Want More? Your Free Novella

  Dedication

  Also By TL Dyer

  About The Author

  Chapter 1

  With the nailbrush I keep in my locker for this purpose, I scrub at the blood that’s drying beneath my fingernails. It doesn’t help that the water clanking through the old pipes and spitting out of the tap is a pathetic lukewarm drizzle. Nor that the fluorescent tube overhead snaps on and off every other minute as though it’s on a meter and the money’s about to run out.

  I lean over the sink, blowing a strand of hair from my face, and examine myself in the mirror. Scrutinise every millimetre of my skin, from forehead to ear lobes to cheeks to chin, both sides. Tip my head back and tilt one way and the other to make sure there’s nothing on my neck, down to the base of my throat and the collar of my hoody. The sum total of my injuries is a small round red mark about the size of a two-pence piece an inch below my right ear, and a couple of much smaller pink patches down the left side of my neck.

  Dropping the nailbrush into the sink, I shake the water from my hand and cup my palm over my throat, lining up my thumb and fingers in the exact same position of the marks. I have to press my palm right up against my windpipe and still don’t quite reach entirely. His grip, of course, was much larger than mine. Still, bruises I can get away with. There’s no blood this time, that’s the main thing.

  I’m returning the nailbrush to the make-up bag, and both to the back of the locker, when there’s a quiet tap at the door and it cracks open an inch.

  ‘Are you still there?’ a voice calls in, echoing off the stone walls of the empty room.

  ‘I am,’ I say, rooting through the locker for the refuse sacks I’m certain are in here somewhere.

  ‘Can I see you before you go?’

  My hand lands on the thin roll of plastic, and I pull it free. ‘I’m sure you could. Maybe try opening the door a little more, that might work.’

  ‘Sarky mare,’ comes the muttered reply. But as I tear off one of the black bin bags and shake it open, my visitor steps half into the room, the other half still pointing back towards the corridor. A glance up at him tells me even this much intrusion makes him uncomfortable. He coughs into his fist. ‘Just making sure you’re alright.’

  I fold the soiled polo shirt I was wearing earlier and slip it into the bag. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘It was a tough one. But I hear you did a sterling job.’

  I hold up the cargo trousers. From a distance you’d think they were clean, but closer examination finds dark patches of dried blood down the right leg and some on the back pockets. After throwing them in the bag, I turn to my boots next. No forensics required for these bad boys, they’ve clearly taken the brunt of tonight’s damage. Dunking them in a vat of scarlet paint would have been less messy.

  ‘The team worked well together, got a good result,’ I say.

  ‘Did you get hurt?’ my sergeant asks, clocking the bloody footwear before I drop it in with the rest of my uniform. Or maybe it’s the skin of my hands, still glowing where I scrubbed at them, that’s caught his attention.

  ‘Superficial,’ I say, unhooking the stained utility vest from the locker door, balling it up and throwing it in with everything else. I gather up two edges of the bag to knot together. When I straighten, wiping the back of my hand across my forehead to push the hair from my eyes, Fred Dalston is still hovering in the doorway, but looking markedly more uneasy than he usually does. Somehow I sense his discomfort is about more than the fact he’s dangerously close to encroaching on the women’s locker room.

  ‘Honestly, Sarge,’ I say with a smile that at this time of the morning isn’t easy to muster. ‘I’m fine. We got the result, and with no harm done.’

  He folds his arms and nods to the floor. It’s only later, as I’m driving home, that I consider even for someone as experienced as him, over two decades in the uniform, there’ll be nights when he’s haunted by thoughts of what might have been. Petty criminals are one thing, but then there are the others. The ones who mean business. Who really don’t give a shit. Who fear nothing and nobody, certainly not some copper waving the rule book around. They’re the ones who, when you meet them, you’d better be on your A-game, because every member of your team depends on it.

  It took fifteen of us in total – eight from our crew and the rest from other wards – to bring the siege in The Mariner’s pub to an end. Fifteen of us, five of them. On paper it sounds easy. Until you factor in this is the most vicious bunch of five males you would rather you didn’t meet on the streets of Newport City Centre. TB-21, they call themselves, in a nod to ‘taking back’ what are purported to be their rights in the twenty-first century. But don’t be fooled by the pathetic nom de plume. They may not be the brightest bulbs in the chandelier, but they’re not new to this game either. This isn’t a bunch of kids throwing their opinions around, demanding everyone take notice. These are grown men in their twenties, thirties – pumped up, ultra-focused – who were brought into the group probably when they were still in school. It means that for more than half of their years on this earth they’ve been groomed, primed, brainwashed and radicalised into an extremist ideology that, by some tragic twist of irony, makes them feel like they belong to something, that they have a purpose.

  So with
all that going for them, it’s no surprise really that when they stormed The Mariner’s just after eleven o’clock last night in their matching white vests and black arm bands, swastikas tattooed on biceps and shaved into their cropped hair, cricket bats in fists which they used to clear the bar of glasses and make their point, the room half full with mid-week drinkers simply froze in fear. Unfortunately, when we turned up on scene soon after, freezing wasn’t an option available to us.

  Taking one hand from the wheel, I touch my fingers to my throat. I don’t feel anything yet, so maybe I’ll get lucky and it’s just a scuff. Maybe when I wake tomorrow, there’ll be no bruising, no physical reminder of what happened. All the sooner for me to forget about my rookie error. It was so sudden, that’s the concerning part. One minute he was complying, the next he flipped, overcome with rage, breaking free of the four of us but targeting me when he spun around, his palm tight at my jugular, forcing me against the wall. The weakest of the bunch, the woman – perhaps that’s what he thought; I certainly folded quick enough, lost all momentum and the capacity to retaliate. Not that he had hold of me for long. The others were on him, doubling up on their efforts, taking the legs from under him to sprawl him over the floor. Then it was re-gather myself, save face in front of my peers, get back in there and finish the job.

  The lights outside the windscreen lose focus, and I thump at the steering wheel before brushing the unwanted tears away. I don’t want to get upset about these things. I don’t want them to haunt me, or wallow in self-pity; there’s no room in the job for that. But I shouldn’t have got caught off guard. It might only have been for a split second, but right then he had me and he knew it. The man’s fiercely dark green eyes had burned into mine with a rage I’ve never seen before. A murderous fury. No other way to describe it. And I couldn’t look away. His breath and spit on my chin, his looming height, his broad build that blocked out the lights from the bar, his strength… If I’d been alone, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.

  I shoot out a hand to flick on the radio. The haunting lyrics and gentle repetitive melody of Biffy Clyro’s Many of Horror filters through the speakers. Not exactly uplifting, but not too jarring for this early hour of the day either.

  Dual carriageway and open spaces become single-lane roads and villages that intersect the mountains on either side of the valley, and the closer I get to home, the further I distance myself from the shift. At this time of year it’s still dark in these early hours, but before long I’ll be driving this way as the sun rises. Bathed in the silent newness of those first rays, even the most mundane of scenery can appear beautiful. That’s the thing about ‘the valleys’ – by design they’re a point of contrast. Terraced houses built a hundred-plus years ago to accommodate coal miners and their families, their roots working class, their very foundations a symbol of strength and earnestness, outlast newer builds even today. Rows and rows of the formulaic terraces are flanked by the natural beauty of the mountains, their murky, dust-ingrained bricks matching the shades of the hillside itself in the colder months, but the brightly painted stone window sills and doors provide a constant distraction. A splash of colour sends out the message that life exists here, full and vibrant, and we won’t be downtrodden, much as this world might try its hardest. That’s the valleys for you. Optimistic. Stubborn. But it’s home. It always has been.

  The house is quiet, but the pint-sized red and blue Hot Wheels backpack leaning beside the shoe rack tells me I’m not here alone. I drop the bin bag of my bloodied uniform into the cupboard under the stairs, then stick my head around the living-room door. The prone body of my father lies on the sofa under the blanket I keep hooked over the armchair for this very reason. His soft snore means I haven’t woken him, so I back out and slip off my trainers to tread upstairs.

  As always, Jake’s bedroom door is open, his soft night light seeping a warm glow onto the landing. Edging the door wider, I step inside where I can see him, but not so much that I’ll disturb him. He’s flat on his back, one arm tucked under the duvet, the other stretched out so that his hand dangles over the edge of the mattress. His head is turned to one side and his cheek rests on the crocheted blanket he calls Suzu, after the nanna who made it for him before he was born. I told him that when Nanna was making it she filled each stitch with a hug, so that every time he would clutch it, it would be as if she were hugging him.

  The shape of his body seems small in the bed, the skin on his cheeks and his hair still that of a baby’s, but his approaching birthday is a reminder that he’s growing older all the time. Five now. Six in a few more weeks.

  How old were they, I wonder, as I rest my head against the door frame. How old were each of those men we arrested tonight when they stopped being little boys who needed their comforters and instead became violent men? What paths did their lives take to make that happen? How much control did they have over that? Were they victims of their environment, their upbringing? Or was it simply wrong place, wrong time, and they just happened to be the most suggestible, meaning they were easily snagged?

  Jake’s breathing is loud enough that I know he’s in a deep sleep. I cross the room to plant a soft kiss on his forehead, tuck his free hand back under the duvet. He barely moves, only to snuggle his cheek closer to Suzu, closer to his nanna who, had she still been here, would have loved all the attention he gives her. She had put love in every stitch. Because she knew that in the short time she’d have with him, it wouldn’t be anywhere near enough.

  Back downstairs, I head into the kitchen to make breakfast and a coffee. No point going to bed now, Jake will be up in another two hours for school. Though I’ve closed the kitchen door, Dad’s bleary-eyed face puts in an appearance soon after I’ve sat at the table.

  ‘Sorry, Dad. I tried to be quiet,’ I say.

  He waves away my comment and pulls out a chair opposite. ‘Already awake.’

  ‘He didn’t want to stay at yours?’ I ask over a mouthful of toast and strawberry jam. Breakfast of champions. Round these parts, anyway.

  Dad quietly laughs, which I take to mean there was a wrangle. Jake can be a stubborn little bugger when he wants to be. ‘Wanted his own bed,’ is all he says, with a tired smile, rubbing at eyes that are trying to adjust to the harshness of the kitchen spotlights.

  ‘Why don’t you go home, Dad, catch a few more hours?’

  ‘Aye. Will do,’ he says, but doesn’t make a move to get up.

  I’ve finished one piece of toast and started on the second, when he asks, ‘Tough night, love?’

  My hand goes to my hoody and I tug the collar up around my throat, silently cursing myself for forgetting to let my hair down out of the bun at the back of my head. But Dad doesn’t seem to notice. He’s looking down at his left hand, which he’s scratching with the fingernails of his right.

  ‘Same as any other,’ I reply, dragging the mug of coffee towards me over the table and blowing on it.

  ‘Didn’t give you any trouble?’

  I take another bite of toast, and over the top of it say, ‘Nope. No trouble.’

  ‘Good. Good,’ he says, nodding to the table. Dad must think Newport City Centre is a much safer place than he ever would have imagined. Or he knows that a great majority of the time he asks me that question, my answer is a lie. Either way suits me. The last thing I need is to hand him fuel for his argument that there’s some other job I could and should be doing. Not that it’s a spoken argument; it would kill him to come right out and say it. But he doesn’t have to. It’s written into the lines of his face. I often wonder if he’d be so uneasy with the profession if it was Shaun who chose this for a career instead of me. Shaun, a police officer – now there’s a peculiar thought.

  ‘Sacha, about this Scotland thing…’ Dad starts, and the sigh is out of my mouth before I can reconsider it. He clasps his hands together, rubbing his thumbs over the calluses on his knuckles where the skin is hardened. They’ve always been that way. For as long as I can remember, anyway. That’s what comes fro
m years spent working with wood, and the hand tools that craft it into something either more practical or more beautiful to look at.

  ‘The last thing Shirl and I want is to leave you in the lurch.’

  ‘Dad—’

  ‘This was never on the radar. Never. I mean, Christ’—he puffs out a dry laugh—‘I’ve barely left Cwmcarn in fifty-odd years. Even then it’s only to go a few miles down the road to Blackwood.’

  I raise the mug, burn my lip on the scalding coffee. All I want is my bed right now. Not this conversation. But Dad’s on a roll now.

  ‘Shirl hadn’t even seen this aunt of hers in donkey’s years. She never would have thought she’d leave her this… This sodding farmhouse.’

  ‘You don’t have to go,’ I say, lowering the mug, my top lip stinging.

  Sharp brown eyes snap up to mine. Under the kitchen lights, his slim cheeks look more gaunt than usual, despite their colour. Dad’s back garden workshop means he works outside whenever he can, sat on the porch he constructed, soaking up the vitamin D. It leaves him with a year-round tan that never seems to fade regardless of the ropey Welsh weather. It also means he looks healthy and well even though his build is thin and wiry. Still, right now he looks like he should go to bed. And so should I.

  ‘She loves that boy as much as I do, you know?’ he adds, looking at me from across the table, imploring me to feel something for the woman he’s lived with for the past two and a half years, the one who moved in only nine months after Mam had passed, taking her place at the table, her place in the house.

  ‘I really need to get some sleep, Dad,’ I say, with as much diplomacy as I have left.

  A soft sigh hisses through his nose, but he pins his lips into a forced smile. ‘Aye. Course, love.’ He pushes back the chair and gets up. ‘See you tomorrow then.’

  He hasn’t gone far down the hallway when I force my aching limbs up from the table.

  ‘Dad.’ I drop my shoulder to the kitchen door frame. He turns just as he reaches the bottom of the stairs, taking his house key from his jeans pocket. ‘Thanks.’ I point upstairs. ‘Thank you.’